Relayed from Shire Hall, Gloucester
Baritone Solo, Mr. P. E. Underwood
Grieg's piece is a setting of Bjornson's heroic ballad that tells of the return to Norway of Olaf Trygvason, who had come to England and made a great name as a viking, in the last years of the tenth century.
Olaf and his men are watching for the appearance on the horizon of the land they love. He sings of his joy and the hope he cherishes of bringing Christianity to his people. Violin Solos by Madame Adila Fachiri (At the Piano, Mr. Bertram Harisson)
Tartini, that great eighteenth-century violinist, had a somewhat disturbed youth, for he was driven from his native Padua on account of a secret marriage. He took refuge at a monastery at Assisi, worked hard at fiddling, and when he could safely return to Padua, built up a noted school of violin playing.
He wrote some eighteen Concertos and fifty or sixty Violin Sonatas. Perhaps the most, famous of these last is the 'Devil's Trill' Sonata, said to have been composed after a dream in which the Devil, having entered into a compact to serve the composer, played him a marvellous solo on the Violin - a solo which Tartini, on waking, tried in vain to recall. The 'Devil's Trill' Sonata embodies some of his impressions of the strange visitation -so the tale runs.
The Land o' the Leal arr. Button
Baritone Solo, Mr. P. E. Underwood
The programme contains examples of the work of three of our native composers who were active in the first half of the nineteenth century - Cooke, Horsley, and Walmisley. Cooke, an extremely versatile musician, born in Dublin, played in theatre bands, kept a music shop. taught singing to, among others, Sims Reeves, wrote a book on the subject, was principal tenor at Drury Lane for nearly twenty years, and later conducted there. At one of his benefit nights he played upon all the stringed and wind instruments of the orchestra, and threw in the Pianoforte and Horn.
He wrote music for a good many stage pieces and adapted other people's operas. We remember him only by a few of his Glees, several of which ('Strike the lyre' is one) won prizes in competitions.
William Horsley (one of the founders of our Philharmonic Society, and a friend of Mendelsohn), gained much benefit from his association with the noted glee writer,
Dr. Calleott. Most of his life was spent as a church musician and teacher.
Thomas Forbes Walmisley, an organist, too (he played at St. Martin-in-the-Fields for thirty years), is less famous than his son, Thomas Attwood Walmisley. He could claim musical descent from Mozart, for his teacher Attwood was a pupil of Mozart.
Away in the remote islands of the West of Scotland the folk have made and kept alive their songs of labour and of joy. They lighten the day's toil by singing as they go about it with an appropriate song for each process in the work, and they gather round the fire at night to hear fine ballads of the 'sea reivers' (pirates) of older days.
The Island Sheiling Song is a love-song. To an old refrain, taken down from the singing of a Barra woman, Kenneth Macleod set some Gaelic verses, and Mrs. Kennedy-Fraser supplied English words:-
Last night by the sheiling was Main my beloved...
Like the white lily floating in the peat-bog's dark waters .
Like the blue gentian blooming Wet wi' dew in the sunshine
Are the eyes of my Mairi. purple blue in the sunshine

National Anthem - arr. Brewer
Glees Strike theLyre - Cooke
Glees By Celia's Arbour - Horsley
Part-Song, ' There be none of Beauty's Daughters ' - Brewer
Solo and Chorus, ' Landerkennung ' (Sighting Land) - Grieg
Revery - Debussy
Slavonic Dance - Dvorak, arr. Kreisler
Variations on a Theme by Corelli - Tartini, arr. Kreisler
Part-Song, Music, All Powerful ' - T. F. Walmisley
Solo and Chorus, ' The Hero's Rest ' Baritone Solo, Mr. P. E. UNDERWOOD - Cornelius
Part-Song, ' Song of the Pedlar' - C.Lee Williams
Island Sheiling Song - arr. Roberton
Three Men of Gotham - Lloyd